BookWorm: Predictably Irrational

Dan Ariely, in his own witty and entertaining way, refutes the assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Our misguided behaviours are systematic and predictable – making us predictably irrational

Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational was probably one of the first few books that I read on the subject of human irrationality and psychological bias.

Ariely is a Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. He has an unusual way of looking at things which is quite evident from the way he designs his experiments to gain insights on human behaviour. A lot of credit goes to him for transforming the academic studies about human biases into interesting and entertaining text.

The topic of psychological biases and human irrationality isn’t a new one but what Ariely has done is shift a lot of the thinking developed by such pioneers as Kahneman & Tversky who worked in behavioural economics, and moved it into the everyday sphere.

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